The Calendar of the Church Year (also called the Ecclesiastical Calendar, "ecclesiastical" simply meaning “of or pertaining to the Church”) is an important part of worship in the Episcopal Church. By using the calendar to organize corporate (public) worship and private devotion, the Church ensures that all of its members, wherever they may happen to be in the world, are on the same "wave length" when it comes to focusing on a particular teaching on any given day. The Church uses the calendar to organize the commemoration of the Saints, as well, since this is an important and ancient tradition in the Catholic Church. The Church recognizes itself as the “Communion of Saints.” This includes the Saints that are still here on earth (the Church Militant), laboring to do the work of their Lord, as well as those whose work is done and are now at rest (the Church Expectant). The Calendar is an important link between the Church Militant and the Church Expectant, and will keep the Communion alive until they are reunited at Christ’s return as the Church Triumphant.

The Church Calendar’s origins date back to the Jewish Church, when the apex of Temple worship revolved around the celebration of Pasch, or Passover. The proper celebration of Passover required precise astronomical calculations to determine lunar phases upon which the beginning of the celebration depended. Levitical laws required that Passover be held on the 14th day of the Jewish month of Nisan. Rules established in the book of Leviticus and later traditions described by the historian Josephus required that the 14th day of Nisan not begin until the the sun was in the constellation Aires following the vernal equinox. This sounds easy enough. However, the Jewish calendar is based on lunar phases, not solar. Therefore, discrepancies occurred between the beginning of the date of Nisan 14 and the sun’s position in the sky. These discrepancies were corrected by decree of the Sanhedrin, based on adjustments made on the advice of the Temple’s astronomers.

During the earliest years of the Christian Church, the annual celebration of Christ’s Resurrection – Easter – was celebrated in conjunction with the annual Jewish celebrations of Passover. The Church quickly established the common practice of commemorating the Resurrection on a weekly basis. During these early years, Christians observed the weekly Sabbath on Saturday followed by the commemoration of the Lord’s Day on Sunday. (This is the origin of our modern two-day “weekend”.) As the practice of holding an annual commemoration became accepted throughout Christendom, it was generally accepted that it too should occur on a Sunday, specifically the Sunday following Passover. As long as the Church remained grounded in its Jewish roots, it simply relied on the decree from the Sanhedrin to begin its preparations for Easter.

However, after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem (70 A.D.), when temple worship ended forever, the Christian Church was left to determine the date of Easter on its own. It took this job very seriously and calculated the proper astronomical figures precisely. In spite of this, different Christian communities scattered throughout the Roman world began to calculate the date of Easter using different astronomical formulae, so that eventually the celebration of Easter began to be celebrated on different days in different regions. Often, the different days were not even on a Sunday, a fact that greatly disturbed some Christians. The Church realized that this discrepancy was not good and threatened Christian unity. It realized that all Christians should celebrated Easter on the same day, regardless of where they lived in the world – and that this day must be on a Sunday. Arguments arose over which regional formula ought to be adopted as the universal standard. These arguments were taken very seriously, and the Church almost suffered schism as a result.

In 325, a heresy known as Arianism almost threatened the Church’s existence. (A heresy is a teaching that the Church regards as false or incorrect.) In order to put down this heresy, the Church called an ecumenical council, a synod (or meeting) attended by all the bishops of the entire Church. It was held in the eastern city of Nicaea in Asia Minor (modern Turkey). This Council succeeded in dealing with Arianism, and while all the bishops were still assembled in one place, the Church used the opportunity to also discuss the arguments over the date of Easter. Though the records of their discussions on this subject no longer exist, we know that the bishops at Nicaea adopted the first uniform formula for dating this most important of Christian celebrations. This formula, and numerous subsequent revisions made to it, most notably the one suggested by a respected Christian scholar named Dionysius Exiguus in 532, became the basis of the modern Church Calendar. (Dionysius Exuguus is the person who began the practice of dating the Christian era from the year of the Incarnation of Christ, which he called Anno Domini, or A.D., which literally means "The Year of Our Lord.")

The two most important celebrations in the Christian year are Easter and Christmas. These two primary celebrations teach the Church’s members its two most important lessons about Jesus: that God was Incarnated into the world as a human being, and that He died in order to save us from our own sins before rising from the tomb alive and victorious over death. All other Christian holidays revolve around these two important lessons.

The Easter Cycle is composed of celebrations that revolve around Easter. The Easter Cycle begins at Ash Wednesday, which is forty days before Easter (minus the seven Sundays in between the two days). These forty days are called Lent, which remember that before Jesus began His ministry, He fasted and prayed for the same length of time in the wilderness of Judea. At the end of this Lenten season, the Church remembers the events that occurred in the week immediately preceding Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection. Beginning on Palm Sunday, this week is called Holy Week, and brings to mind the dramatic crescendo leading up to the paramount events of Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday. Easter consists of the 50 days known as the Great Fifty Days of Easter, recalling that after His resurrection Jesus stayed with His followers, teaching them the meaning of that great and glorious day on which He conquered death. Forty days into these fifty days, we remember that He finally ascended into Heaven to return to His Father who sent Him. This is Ascension Thursday. The Great Fifty Days of Easter end with the Feast of Pentecost (a Greek word literally meaning "fiftieth day"), during which we remember that God once again returned to the Church with the descent of the Holy Spirit, fulfilling Jesus’ promise that He would "be with [us] until the end of the world."

A few decades after the resolution of the Easter Controversy at Nicaea, the Church established the fixed day of the Nativity of Christ on the 25th of December. The celebration of the birth of Jesus came about as the Church’s response to the pagan festival Natalis Invicti (The Feast of the Invincible Sun), which was a feast to celebrate the winter solstice established on December 25th by the emperor Aurelian in 274. It was a time for bacchanalian debauchery, and the Church sought to offer a festival for its members that celebrated a greater truth: the Invincible Son. This is the best explanation that we have for the December celebration. It is certain that by the beginning of the 5th century, this day was universally accepted.

The Octave of Christmas, the eight day after His birth, came to be known as the Circumcision of Christ (“The Holy Name of Jesus” has become the politically correct new name for this celebration - a Jewish boy was named at the circumcision ritual). This feast recalls the important fact that not only had Christ been incarnated, but that His earthly body was subjected to the Law of Moses as required for all Jewish boys. The Octave of Christmas became more popular, however, as the Church launched a concerted campaign to prevent the newly converted from reverting to pagan traditions associated with the celebrations of the New Year. Following the Octave is Epiphany, which celebrates the revelation of God to the Gentiles. Epiphany originated in the eastern part of the empire and focused (as is the nature of Greek spirituality) on the mystical aspects of the Incarnation. The Western and Eastern Churches swapped holidays, so to speak, so that both the Nativity and Epiphany were celebrated throughout the empire. This is the origin of the twelve days of Christmas, as Epiphany is twelve days after the celebration of Christmas. Finally, the fortieth day after Christmas, 2 February, is the Feast of the Presentation, during which Jesus was presented at the temple, a ritual observed with great solemnity in Jesus’ time. It was during this feast that the tradition began of blessing the church candles and other ritualistic objects. For this reason the feast came to be known, especially in England, as Candlemas (Le Chandeleur in France).

The Nativity Cycle actually begins in the spring (about the time that the Church is preparing for Easter). The 25th of March, which is exactly 9 months before the 25th of December, is the Feast of the Annunciation of Our Lord to the Blessed Virgin, or simply The Annunciation. Three months later, the 24th of June is celebrated as the Feast of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist. This date is based on the biblical account that St. Elizabeth was six month pregnant when St. Mary visited her, supposedly immediately following the Annunciation. The Nativity Cycle therefore begins in March (supposing it is not pre-empted by Easter), and ends at the beginning of February with the Feast of the Presentation. (The Annunciation, often occurring in Lent, is a day of dispensation from Lenten disciplines). Today, however, the modern Church is more familiar with the first Sunday of Advent as the beginning of the Nativity Cycle. Indeed, we reckon this date as the first day of the Liturgical year.

The third cycle that composes the Church Year is what is unofficially called the Sanctoral Cycle. The Sanctoral Cycle is that which organizes all of the commemorations of the saints. These commemorations have a very important function in the teaching cycle of the Church. The lives of the saints are used as examples by which we, as Christians, are taught to live our lives as faithful witnesses of Christ. The examples occur on different dates that are associated with the many saints that are remembered officially on the Church Calendar. The Church remembered the lives of the saints almost from its beginning. Saints continue to be added to the Calendar even today, proving that saints didn’t live only in the past, but continue to live amongst us today.

The Nativity, Easter, and “Sanctoral” Cycles were organized very early in the history of the Church. The Nativity and Easter Cycles eventually evolved into the Liturgical Seasons, which constitute the first half of the Christian Year. Though the Sanctoral Cycle includes celebrations and commemorations that occur throughout the entire year, it is considered to be the basis of the second half of the Church Year, which is called Ordinary Time.

The first half of the Church Year (six months, or 27 weeks) is called the Liturgical Seasons. The Liturgical Seasons are known as Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, and Easter. Recalling the cycles identified above, Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany evolved from the Nativity Cycle, while the seasons of Lent and Easter evolved from the Easter Cycle. These seasons are very important because they teach us that God has acted on earth in an historical context. His actions were intended to “get our attention” and to call us into a ministry by which we become partners with God to bring the world back into unity with Him. Therefore, the Liturgical Seasons commemorate all of the things God did to bring about the Church and its ministry.

Ordinary Time is the second half of the Church Year. It is during this period that we learn how to respond to God’s call to us made during the Liturgical Seasons. As the Liturgical Seasons revolve around God’s actions, Ordinary Time revolves around how we, as Children of God, will respond to His actions. Even though we are called to action in Ordinary Time, the lessons that we learn during worship require instruction to us from God, through the teachings of Jesus to His Apostles and other disciples.

Ordinary Time, in spite of how the name of the season sounds, is not “common” or “routine.” The term “Ordinary” refers to the system of organizing Jesus’ teachings into a set of themes or lessons. (More on this system of ordering lessons will follow shortly.) In the Anglican tradition, Ordinary Time is known either as the Season after Trinity or the Season after Pentecost. Trinity Sunday is the Sunday following Pentecost Day (which is also always on a Sunday). It is the first celebration of Ordinary Time. For this reason, the Anglicans traditionally call Ordinary Time the Season after Trinity. This tradition continues in all of the Provinces of the Anglican Communion except the Episcopal Church in the United States. The Episcopal Church calls this season the Season after Pentecost since Ordinary Time actually begins on the day after Pentecost, not the day after Trinity Sunday. Theologically, the Episcopal Church stresses the importance of Pentecost over that of Trinity Sunday, since Trinity Sunday is based on the events commemorated on Pentecost.

Before the Lessons, Collects and Propers can be discussed, a word must be said about the use of the Lectionaries. A lectionary is a list of lessons that are used throughout the Church Year. Beginning on the first day of the Church Year, which is the First Sunday of Advent, until the last day, which is the last day of Ordinary Time, every day is assigned a set of readings from Scripture. The Church uses two such lectionaries. The first is called the Eucharistic Lectionary, or the Sunday Lectionary. The Eucharistic Lectionary organizes the Scripture readings and Collects for each year into weekly sets. Therefore there are 52 weekly sets for each year. The Eucharistic Lectionary is a triennial cycle, meaning that it take three years to complete the entire lectionary. When the entire lectionary is completed, three years after it was begun, the entire Bible will have been read in Church. The Eucharistic Lectionary is intended to be used at the weekly Eucharist on Sunday (thus it is either called the Eucharistic Lectionary or the Sunday Lectionary) and at the Eucharist if it is celebrated at any time during the week.

The second lectionary used by the Church is called the Daily Office Lectionary because it is intended to be used during the Daily Offices of Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer. Morning and Evening Prayer are usually used by individual Christians during private devotions. They are also used during public worship throughout the week following Sunday. It is assumed that Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer are read every day, thus the reason they are called the “Daily Offices.” The Daily Office Lectionary provides a set of lessons for each day of the year. It is biannual, so that it is completed in two years. The Collect used during the Daily Offices are the same used during the Eucharist on the Sunday before.

Now that the Lectionaries have been explained, we may now proceed to the Lessons, Collects, and Propers that make up each of them.

The teachings of Jesus are recorded in the Gospels of the New Testament. Jesus had quite a lot to say about many things. From the beginning of the Church, Christian scholars have recognized several themes that Jesus used to teach us about how we are asked to respond to God’s call to us. After witnessing God’s actions as He calls us into a common ministry with Him, and after we accept His call, we still need to be shown how to respond since we are still human and need guidance. Throughout Ordinary Time, we are taught how to carry out the ministry to which we are called, using Jesus’ ideas as a guide. Therefore, the readings that are read during public worship are in reality lessons by which the themes of Jesus’ teachings are taught. Each of these themes are organized by the Eucharistic and Daily Office Lectionaries described above.

During corporate worship, the entire Church receives these Lessons by hearing the Scriptures read to them, and hearing a sermon or homily about the Lessons. There are usually three of these Lessons read during worship. However, if there is only one used – at the discretion of the celebrant at the Eucharist or the officiant at the Daily Offices, it is always from the Gospel, so that the focus is on Jesus’ teachings (as opposed to, say, St. Paul’s, who wrote many of the letters that make up the bulk of the remainder of the New Testament).

At the beginning of Christian worship in the Catholic tradition, a Collect, or prayer, is said that sums up the theme of the Lessons that will shortly be heard as the service progresses. Any public speaker will tell you that when you are putting forth an idea or lesson during a public speech, there are three things that you must do in order to get your point across. “Tell ‘em what you’re going to tell ‘em. Tell ‘em. Then tell ‘em what you told ‘em.” During worship, the Church organizes its services in much the same way (though to lead one to believe that this was a conscious effort would be misleading.) The Collects are very much like the first part of the public speaker’s three-part goal: “Tell ‘em what you’re going to tell ‘em.” The Collects, of course, are prayers, and so it is not so much that the Church is going to tell the congregation what it is going to tell ‘em (though this is very certainly true), but that the Church – and the congregation assembled to hear God’s Word – is telling God: “This is what we hear you saying in these passages from Scripture that we are about to read.” By using the Church Calendar, the Church makes sure that every congregation is going to hear the same lessons, and will pray the same Collect on any given day of the year. This is just one of the many ways that the Church maintains Christian unity.

During the Liturgical Seasons, the Lessons and Collects are all focused on individual events that effected Jesus’ ministry while he lived among us. Ordinary Time, as has already been discussed, is focused on the lessons that Jesus gave us to show us how to respond to God’s call to work with Him. During Ordinary Time, these Lessons – and their associated Collects – are organized into sets that are known as Propers. There are twenty-nine such Propers, one for each week of Ordinary Time. During some years, depending on the date of Easter, not all of the Propers are used. However, since the Lectionaries are designed to be completed in either two or three years, it is assured that the Bible is still read in its entirety before the lectionary cycle is completed. Therefore, if a single Proper is not used during one year, it will be read at some point during that three-year period, or two-year period in the case of the Daily Office Lectionary.

How do the Propers work? It is rather complicated at first glance, but with a little effort, the logic behind it soon becomes apparent. If a person uses the Daily Office Lectionary for personal devotions, he or she very quickly gets used to the rhythm, and they are used almost without thought.

Each week of Ordinary Time – known in the Anglican tradition as either the Season after Trinity (in non-ECUSA provinces) or as the Season after Pentecost (in the ECUSA) – is assigned a base date. Each Proper is used for the week in which that fixed base date falls. According to the Book of Common Prayer in the Episcopal Church of the United States, these dates – with the assigned Proper for each base date – are as follows:

Fasts are entirely different, as the name suggests, from feasts. Whereas feasts are days of celebration, fasts are days during which we are called to inwardly reflect. Though the days of fasts are outwardly days of mourning, they really are not intended to be that way inwardly. Some people prefer to refer to fast days as “serious” days. I do not like this, however, because Easter and Christmas, the two most important feast days of the year, are very serious days. However, the nature of the days to which the term “serious days” refers is on the mark. Fasts are not days for “weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth”, nor are they intended to be observed with heroic and “showy” mourning (Jesus taught us not to do this), but are simply days marked with special acts of discipline and self-denial. Though traditionally the Church has dictated how these acts are to be carried out, the modern Christian must make this decision for himself/herself.

There are only two official fast days on the Church Calendar:

In addition to these days are also days of special devotion, but are not considered fasts:

The manner in which the Calendar guides public worship should now be apparent. The Churches of the Catholic Faith simply do not conduct public worship outside of the Calendar. The Eucharistic Lectionary is used for all primary services on Sunday, even if that service is Morning Prayer rather than the Eucharist. It is also used when the Eucharist is celebrated on weekdays. The Daily Office Lectionary is used for all private recitations of the Daily Office and during public recitation of the Daily Office during the week. The prayers that are said, and even the sermon that is preached is based on the date on the Calendar. The Calendar, therefore, is of utmost importance to public worship, and the Church goes to great length to make sure that it is properly maintained.

The Calendar is also a useful basis for organizing personal devotions. The Church encourages its members to read Morning and Evening Prayer as part of their private worship. By doing so, even those who are worshipping privately and individually maintain the unity of the Church, as they are reading the same Lessons, and praying the same prayers as all of the other Christians worshipping according to the Daily Offices.